On being good gay: ‘covering’ and the social structure of being LGBT+

Abstract

This essay discusses Cyril Ghosh’s analysis of the notion of ‘gay covering’ as an act of downplaying one’s gayness in the face of public expectations, and its countermove of ‘reversing cover’. I acknowledge, along with Ghosh, that both the demands to ‘cover’ and ‘reverse cover’ are problematic from the perspective of LGBT+ authenticity. I aim to show, however, that such acts of covering, and reversing cover, are borne from complex social relations that involve (often conflicting) expectations, self-identifications, and modes of being treated as. This social structure of what it is to be ‘gay’ may help explain, not only why such demands to cover, and reverse cover, are problematic, but also why, in the world we live in, the harm and oppression of the two demands are very different.